Trent Richardson Says He Played Most Of Season With Broken Ribs

Cleveland Browns running back Trent Richardson had a pretty good rookie season, even though he may not have lived up to the #3 overall selection he was.

Richardson fell several yards short of a 1,000 rushing on the season, but did have over 1,300 total yards on the season. Some people may look down on the season Richardson had, but according to the Akron Beacon Journal, Richardson played most of the season with broken ribs.

“Sometimes it’s hard to shift positions, twist, catch balls on my shoulder,” said Richardson, the third overall pick in the 2012 draft. “It was real tough because it limits you from a lot. You can’t really cut like you want to or you can’t really make the body movement like you want to. You can’t squeeze through the hole like you want to. You can’t really get full burst ‘cause your feet hitting the ground, it’s impacting all of that. It hurts a lot, especially when you get punched and you get hit in that side. Some guys on the ground want to do other stuff, want to come in and land on your ribs, which really hurts. It impacts a lot.”

Richardson says the ribs make it hard for him off the field also.

“For the first three or four weeks, I think I had people help me get dressed and help me in the shower and everything,” Richardson said. “So it was tough.”

Richardson broke Hall of Famer Jim Brown’s franchise records for the most rushing yards 950 and rushing touchdowns 11 by a rookie.

Richardson wants everyone to know he wasn’t satisfied by his season.

“I wasn’t satisfied with my season at all,” Richardson said. “Looking back at it, there was some times and positions where I couldn’t do anything, and I made something out of nothing. My offensive line they picked me up, and they got better and better as the season went on. I think we got away from the run a little bit at the end of the season, but that’s due to being behind, and that’s football. At a time like this, you got to discipline yourself to make sure that you be hard on yourself when you go back and watch film and make sure that you criticize yourself so hard to where you won’t make those mistakes next year.”